COLUMN RIGHT : Quotas Count Us All Out : They denigrate and stunt every individual’s distinct personality, hopes and attitudes.

The progress of individual liberty in the United States has been the progress of replacing skin color, ethnicity or gender with accomplishment as the touchstone for political or professional success. The nation is now retrogressing on that laudatory historical path and promoting community enmities.

California’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Dianne Feinstein, has pledged administrative, executive and judicial appointments according to gender, racial and ethnic quotas reflecting population percentages: 50% women, 25% Latino, 7% black and 7% Asian and other minorities. Feinstein’s pledge echoes the voice of President Jimmy Carter, who championed the appointment of federal judges based on comparable nationwide gender and minority quotas. The Democratic Party rules for selecting delegates to national conventions similarly insists on female and minority quotas.

The assumptions behind the quotas are both false and pernicious: that women and minority groups consist of fungible individuals whose interests, aspirations and sympathies are unique and permanently divide them from non-group members; that female and minority groups can be satisfactorily represented politically only by individuals who share their gender, race or ethnicity, and that such ascriptive characteristics are and should be decisive in the electoral process, the administration of justice and qualification for government office.

But the diversity of aspirations, interests and viewpoints within female or minority groups is enormous and overlaps those of non-group members. For instance, women sharply divide over abortion, as do men; the most fervent champion of abortion rights on the Supreme Court is Justice Harry Blackmun, whereas a strong critic is Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) are enthusiasts for gender and minority preferences in employment or contracting; opposing views are held by scholars Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.

Blacks and whites divide over desegregation of traditionally black colleges, court-ordered busing, drug legalization, the lyrics of 2 Live Crew and countless other issues.

The happenstance of a shared sex, racial, or ethnic status is neither necessary nor sufficient to the fair representation of individuals within those groups. Indeed, the contrary notion is absurd. Are whites not fairly represented in Los Angeles because Tom Bradley is the mayor? Are female judges incapable of fairly presiding over a criminal trial of a male defendant? Would the election of Dianne Feinstein leave California’s males unfairly under-represented? It denigrates and stunts every individual’s distinct personality, hopes and attitudes to suggest that all are the inevitable proxy of the congenital accident of sex, race or ethnicity.

To reduce invidious stereotyping and prejudices, laws and practices should teach that such characteristics are no more important in appraising individuals than are their shoe sizes. Thus, laws should strictly proscribe the use of race, ethnicity or gender in political, economic or educational decision-making.

No ascriptive characteristics deserve any consideration in medicine, law, teaching, professional sports or other lines of employment. That is a major reason why the Supreme Court in 1964 held unconstitutional racial designations of candidates on ballots.

Yet the Voting Rights Act now encourages racial bloc voting and demands that district boundary lines be drawn to ensure a proportional representation of minorities in legislative bodies and elected judgeships. Scores of states and municipalities dictate racial and gender quotas in public employment and contracting that shower advantages on individuals never victimized by discrimination. Federal civil-rights laws smile on racial and gender preferences in both employment and education and, at present, Congress is edging toward employment quotas. Also, the Supreme Court fueled racial stereotyping last month by endorsing minority preferences in broadcasting to promote “minority viewpoints,” a concept that degrades minorities as fungible and defies definition.

Racist and sexist enmities are never alleviated by practicing racism or sexism. Indeed, the practices foster antagonisms and the types of interracial crimes recently witnessed in Howard Beach, Bensonhurst and New York’s Central Park.

The animosities scourging nations split by gender and ethnic prejudices--South Africa or Romania, for example--should daunt the United States from its wrongheaded civil-rights course.